San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Hollywood satire and Victorian ghosts.
In 1902, literary wunderkind and queer feminist upstart Mary MacLane published her provocative memoir, “I Await the Devil’s Coming” — retitled against her will by the publisher “The Story of Mary MacLane.” This scandalous tome is the igniting force behind emily m. danforth’s queer gothic comedyhorror novel, “Plain Bad Heroines.”
Mary was real; what follows is pure fiction. Her brazen, confessional words become a dangerous obsession for teenage lovers Clara and Flo, students at the Brookhants School for Girls, located in the woods of Rhode Island. Following their shocking deaths along with a handful of others, the school is forced to close ... until modernday literary wunderkind and queer feminist upstart Merritt Emmons publishes her acclaimed book about the supposedly cursed school.
Merritt’s work is being made into a film, shot on location, starring celesbian Harper Harper as Flo and obedient former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. Is the school still haunted? Is the film haunted? If so, by whom? Such are the questions posed in danforth’s second novel.
If that sounds like a lot, it is. This book is long: 640 pages. The doorstop weaves two central story lines. One, in the present, focuses on the casting and making of the film, centering on Merritt, Audrey and Harper ( just as breathlessly rendered as you want her to be). And in the past, the story continues postClara and Flo’s grisly deaths — via yellow jackets, deadly wasps that tend to make an appearance when things get spooOOooky — from the perspective of young school principal Libby Brookhants and her dashing ( female) partner Alex Trills.
The presentday story is the most effective, benefiting from the twin motors of sexual tension and a secret revolving around the making of the increasingly metafictional film. The Hollywood satire feels legit, and Audrey balances the more fictivefeeling Harper and Merritt. Libby and Alex are beautifully written, but their action sometimes lacks the narrative drive found in our trio of Hollywood hotties. A character unto themself is the chatty, dramatic narrator, who is also responsible for the many comic or explanatory footnotes. Sara Lautman’s black and white illustrations add a further gothic flair.
This isn’t danforth’s first foray into sapphic love; she’s the author of the 2012 youngadult novel “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” wherein a teenage girl is sent to a rural gay conversion camp after being caught kissing the prom queen. ( If it sounds familiar, it might be because it was made into a wellreviewed indie film in 2018.)
The title of this freewheeling, ambitious novel is from the pen of Mary MacLane herself: “I wish someone would write a book about a plain, bad heroine so that I might feel in real sympathy with her.” The heroines of this story are neither plain nor bad, but human: rebellious, insecure, funny, deep with longing and scars still healing. And, yes, we do feel sympathy for them. Recommended for fans of queer kissing, Victorian romance, ghost stories and Hollywood high jinks.